


Sample Tracks

by Beginning_Returner



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-28 11:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15047855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginning_Returner/pseuds/Beginning_Returner
Summary: A compilation of WIP excerpts because I got tagged in a writer's ask.





	1. One

**a-basill's keyword search results are:**

**light** : 

**(PruCan fic)**

It was just that Gilbert didn't know how to deal with an Incarnation like Matthew. Even in the gloomy trenches, he had positively radiated. Now, under the gas lamps here in the kitchen, he was vibrant, prismatic, sharp, like a fragment of ice sticking straight up from a pond, catching the dawn's first light. And o how he would love to pluck up that dear fragment, though he knew its edge would bleed him and its cold would burn him, through and through. 

**alone** : 

**(Medieval Giselbert fic)**

Many nights passed, and he was growing desperate when he finally found what he sought. It was only an epitome, a volume that summarized relevant extracts from much earlier chronicles. 

But it was enough. 

Giselbert was glad he was alone with his candle in the dark bibliotheca when he found the first excerpt that gave him the answers he so desperately sought. Somehow, he did not wish others to hear as he read out the passage, slowly and carefully, letting the words sink deep into him. 

**dirt** : 

**(PruCan fic)**

"I suppose you two will be wanting a bath," said Aline several helpings of soup later. 

"Yes, with two separate washbasins, I'd think. Wouldn't want to transmit one person's dirt to the other! ...Do we have more than one washbasin?" asked Matt. 

"Oh please. This is Monsieur François' establishment. We are well supplied with every convenience!" 

 

* * *

 

**historia-vitae-magistras' keyword search results are:**

**bed** : 

**(PruPan fic)**

Somewhat hesitantly, he entered the room to which the servants pointed him. It was much less richly appointed than the guest rooms afforded him by Arthur and Francis, which was a comfort to him. The green wallpaper showed a pattern of repeating ornamental urns containing plants and creepers, and no carpet covered the plain wood floor. The bed, chair, and table were simple, but elegant in their simplicity. Kiku thought to himself that if he were to furnish western-style rooms for use by foreign visitors in his own lodgings in Japan, he might well employ the same style of decor. 

**tree** : 

**(Medieval Giselbert fic)**

With a bag plump with rosehips attached to his hip and a fond farewell from the girl's family, Giselbert turned his horse, leaving the citadel and its nearby settlements far behind. Finally, he espied what he sought most: a copse of pine-trees, and young ones, too. On dismounting, he began snapping off some branches from each tree, being careful not to take too much. "Sorry to take these from you, I know you'll need them to grow in the spring," he muttered as he plucked. "But we've got quite a few folk back home who won't last too long without your needles. Please, lend those men your vitality, and may you grow well when the ice breaks once more." 

**sky** : 

**(PruCan fic)**

The man -was he really a man?- who stood before him held the machinegun in two hands with practiced ease. He was tall, wore glasses, and a single wisp of golden hair had escaped from under his regulation helmet. His eyes were colder than a cloudless sky in the middle of a winter coldsnap. Deep inside Gilbert, an inaudible chord was struck. He saw vast expanses of water, merciless in their capriciousness. He saw forests without end, greater than any he had ever known. He saw a sunset on an unbroken horizon that went on forever. 

_Kanada._


	2. Two

**(From the second chapter of Swimming Through The Torrent)**

By the end of the year of Our Lord 1271, the Order had once again suffered many setbacks in their crusade against the Pagan Prussians. So many local nobles, taken from their families and raised in the Christian faith by the Brothers themselves, had done nothing but betray their efforts by turning on them.

But the seasons turned as they always did, and now Giselbert sat in a wooden washtub next to the small hearth of his cell and cleansed himself in preparation for the holy feast of Christmas.

His unearthly pale flesh was carpeted with the livid pink of scars and burn weals that intermittently spilled their pain upon his body as he washed them. They suffused his being with the torment of his fallen Brothers, with the screams of the violated, of the dying that fell burnt and bloody in the churned streets. O, how he hated those ungodly men for taking his people from him. Their deeds had covered his flesh with the blazing fires of innumerable stigmata.

So many castles had fallen to the pagans, so many were taken back once again. Giselbert whispered their names as he passed a soapy cloth over each cut, every raw patch of skin. Speaking while in his quarters broke the Rule of the Order, but at the moment, naming his fallen forts was the best way he had to acknowledge and honor his and their suffering.


	3. Three

The first thing that Kiku always saw in the morning was the dingy rafters above his head. The house was ancient, having somehow survived both the invisible surge that had flattened the town before the war, and the sea of fire triggered from above that came later. Given the usual wood and plaster construction of the building, that alone was a miracle. Though, given its condition, it probably wasn't worth saving. Same as him, really.

Kiku's routine was always the same: wake up, put away the futon, dress, and head downstairs in stockings to fetch his only pair of boots at the doorway. As he passed by the landlady's quarters downstairs, she'd inevitably call out to him.

"Have some tea at least, before you go," she'd say.

The brew was invariably weak, made using only a few small fragments of plant, and more twigs than leaves at that. But he always took up her offer, and always reminded her to be careful with the charcoal brazier under the table that unevenly heated their feet.

For she was a good woman, and deserved to live, even if her wretched tenant did not.

As he left, he'd sometimes find himself singing the old chant intoned by the firemen of Edo on their rounds.

"Hi no yo-oo-jin..."

"Be careful with fire." As he had not been, and it had burned him, through and through.

Under his belly binding, the sick, misshapen weals of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still burned bright. Some crept in rivulets all the way to his throat. Kiku was always careful to wear a buttoned shirt under his kimono. The true nature of the sparkling explosions had only recently been revealed to the public, and revulsion of the victims' impurity was everywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> My blog [is right here](https://modoru-mono.tumblr.com/). I mostly post history and archaeology with a smattering of good Hetalia.


End file.
